A Home Coming

Back in early July, we were getting ready for a home coming.  We had the guys from Premier Heating & Air come out and fire up the geothermal system and get the air conditioning going.

I’m glad they know where all those wires go!

And then on the Tuesday after Independence Day, our trees

came home as floor boards.

With the green paraffin sealed ends still in place.

I think they are going to be beautiful.

Some boards have more of the flakes than others.

 

Some are positively rustic.

And some are so clean they look store bought.

We tested the moisture content. The boards were between 12 and 16%. They need to be below 10% before we lay them. So the air conditioning continues to cool and dry the house and the flooring.

I’m so happy that we were able to make this happen. Using the trees we had to remove to build for flooring was really important to me. It’s kind of like The Giving Tree only with a whole family of trees.

Like families, though, I’m sure some of the trees are more giving than others.  Some are undoubtedly unhappy about the way things turned out and will complain when we step on them.  Some will glow with serene beauty, some will be attention getting, and some will go dark and brood in a corner. 

We’ll be delighted to have them all back home.

Paint Magic

A few weeks back, Israel and his crew started prepping to paint.

I think there was a seniority system, because the inside prep crew seemed much younger.

Of course, it could have been nepotism.  But, before too long they had the primer on the trim and the walls, and things started to come together.

When they started to prime the outside, the real transformation began.

As each side got painted, the house left Mary Ann behind and started to become a little more Ginger. 

The yellow was cute and pigtailish, but the white just takes your breath away.

 

 

 

Back inside doors were getting primed, too.

All the trim looks so much better all one color instead of two toned.

Now the outside is pretty much done, so Israel continues his paint magic on the inside.  He’s winding up the trim.

I guess I’d better pick those wall colors in a hurry!

Cabinet Meeting

A few weeks back the cabinets started to arrive.  Some of the cabinets need to wait for the hardwood floors, but some, like the perimeter cabinets in the kitchen, can sit on plywood of the same thickness.  So The Town Carpenter started installing those.

First came the sink wall.  I was anxious so see how the apron front sink would look, so I was very excited to see it and how well it fit.

Then I had to pull out the granite sample to see how we had done with the paint color, sink and granite.

I think it’s going to work well.

Last week the counter top fabricator came by to make the templates for cutting the granite.

It didn’t look too hard.  You lay the lathe strips out, you square everything out, cut them to length and hot glue the whole business together.

Then you carry the little frames back to the shop and cut the granite to fit.

It gave us a measure of comfort.  Especially since Builder Gary nearly had a heart attack when he went to check on the fabricator the previous week.  We had chosen a close by shop so that we could run by to see the templating and cutting progress.  Gary couldn’t get the guy on the phone, so he just drove down there to talk to him. 

The building was empty.

No granite.  No saws.  No forklifts.

No forwarding address.

Has anyone ever bought a life insurance policy on their builder? I don’t think I can finish this house alone, and I don’t think Gary can take another day like that.

But, Gary finally got the granite guy on the phone and found out that their building had been sold, so they had moved ….

across town (sigh).

The good news is that he moved into the same neighborhood as the cabinetmaker, so we can visit both at once.

And speaking of the cabinet maker, back to the kitchen cabinets.

Opposite the sink wall is the fridge wall.  We will have a freezer on the left and a refrigerator on the right. 

But wait!  We will have upper cabinets between the two, also.

And here's a shot that shows the whole kitchen, including the range wall.  The cabinets that are painted on the inside will have glass doors.  The ones with wood on the inside will have solid doors.

Meanwhile, the little snack kitchen area down in the basement was feeling left out.  So the cabinets I had bought and stored in a U-Haul pod started shouting,

“Put me in, Coach!”

So, Coach Nathan and Coach Allan went to work:

And just to one up the upstairs kitchen, they took it all the way to counters.

Pretty spiffy, huh?

In fact, Coaches Nathan and Allan also took the upstairs laundry room cabinets all the way to counters, too.

And while they were at it, they fixed up the “infirmary” where we will store all of the diabetes supplies and other medicines and vitamins.

But, The Town Carpenter had an answer for all this activity. 

The master bath linen press and

the vanities.

I pulled out the faucets for the vanities and the granite sample to see how it will look.  I had to decide whether I wanted the granite honed or polished.

The granite sample is polished on the left and honed on the right.  The beadboard will be the color of the cabinets.  What do you think?  Shiny or matte?  Polished or honed?

The Sound of Silence

Last week the sound proofers came and did their thing in the band room.  Most of the time, I enjoy the sounds coming up through the floor of the kitchen in our current house, but when I want to listen to something  else or when someone is experimenting with screeching metal guitar sounds, I ache for soundproofing.

First up was to put mufflers on the heat ducts.  These “privacy duct silencers” will keep the band noise from travelling through the network of pipes and serving as an unintended speaker system throughout the house. They are constructed of a layer of perforated and corrugated aluminum, then wrapped with fiberglass insulation and topped with another layer of unperforated corrugated aluminum. 

I think the mufflers work.  While the guys from Premier were working on firing up the geothermal system, I went into the band room next door and tried to shout through the duct to them.  They couldn’t hear me.  Or maybe they just pretended not to.

The next step was putting up sound isolating clips on the wall adjoining the guest room and attaching a “hat channel.” The sheet rock will attach to the channel and be isolated from the studs to keep the booming bass from traveling through the studs to the next room.

Next up was to shoot a laser line around the room to make sure the ceiling grid would be level.  There weren’t really two lines; I didn’t have a tripod and I’m not as steady as I used to be.

Then they suspended the grid from the ceiling and attached the hat channel to that.

Next came a layer of sound batts on top of the grid.

Then they put up sheet rock all around and came back to put a second, overlapping layer on the ceiling. 

But wait!

There’s more.  There is magic between the layers.

Before they put on the second layer of sheetrock, they apply copious amounts of green glue. The green glue is supposed to dampen the sound and trap it between the layers of sheetrock.

Keep going….

More, please…

That’s more like it.  Say, do you think that guy ever worked in a bakery?

And up it goes.

Every sheet on the second layer got the same treatment.

We went through quite a lot of green glue.

I expected great praise and exclamations of unending joy from the band members.  Not really.  It turns out that they are only interested in the acoustics inside the band room.  What happens outside of the room is not very interesting to them.

Sigh.

Well, at least the neighbors and I will be able to enjoy the sound of silence.